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Chapter 10: Neither This nor That

Look rightly: look without belief in your eyes, look without prejudices, and you will find godliness. You cannot miss it because it is everywhere. It is not like a target that you can miss; hit anywhere and you will find it, because it is everywhere. It is impossible to miss it. All that you need is an innocent heart. But a Hindu cannot be innocent, a Mohammedan cannot be innocent. He is full of garbage: full of theories, theologies, full of borrowed knowledge - that’s what I call garbage.

I am not saying that Mohammed is not right, I am not saying that Buddha is not right; otherwise, why should I speak on Buddha, on Mohammed, on Christ? They are true, but their truth cannot be your truth - you will have to find it on your own. Truth cannot be borrowed, truth is nontransferable; it never becomes part of your heritage. You have to seek and search on your own. It has always to be individual.

My truth is my truth. It’s my experience. I can talk about it, I can sing songs in its praise, I can dance it. I can show you my ecstasy - but still, that which has been experienced remains unexpressed. No scripture has been able to express it. All scriptures are efforts to express, but all efforts have failed: truth is inexpressible.

The scriptures simply show the compassion of the people who attained, but they don’t prove that the compassion has succeeded in expressing the truth.

Rabindranath was dying and somebody said to him, “You should be happy and glad and thankful to God - you are the greatest poet the earth has ever known. You have written six thousand poems; nobody else has done that. Even Shelley, who is thought to be the greatest poet in the West, has written only two thousand songs. You are thrice great!”

But tears started rolling down from Rabindranath’s eyes. The man was puzzled; he could not figure out why Rabindranath was crying. He said, “Why are you crying? Feel thankful to God! He has fulfilled your life. You have attained all that one aspires to attain.”

Rabindranath said, “I have not attained anything! Those six thousand songs are proof of my failure.”

Listen attentively. Rabindranath says, “Those six thousand songs are proofs of my failure. I was trying to say something, but I have not been able to say it. Each time I tried, I failed. I tried again and again and again, six thousand times I tried, and I have failed. The song that I had come to sing is still unsung. I am taking it with me.”

That is the case with a Buddha, a Mohammed, a Zarathustra - with all those who have known. You cannot be a believer and religious together. If you want to be religious, you have to drop all beliefs. That is my third basic difference.